KINGMAN — A seven-year comprehensive study of three groundwater aquifers beneath the land’s surface in Mohave County may dry up as a result of further anticipated state budget cuts.

“The state’s budget is in the toilet, for lack of better words,” said Thomas Whitmer, regional water planning manager of Arizona Department of Water Resources during a Mohave County supervisors general meeting Monday in Kingman.

Whitmer told the county supervisors he expects about 40 percent of ADWR personnel to be terminated. The cuts would completely eliminate the rural program and all studies currently being conducted by the state agency would come to a halt. The consequence would leave the local study 75 percent complete, he said.

The combined team efforts of ADWR and United States Geological Survey would analyze existing information and gather updated information about the Hualapai groundwater basin beneath the Dolan Springs and Valle Vista areas, the Sacramento Valley groundwater basin located beneath the area of Kingman and Golden Valley areas as well as the Hualapai Valley ground water basin beneath the White Hills.

ADWR could be forced to quit as early as January 2010, and USGS time runs out Sept. 30, 2010, Whitmer said.

The study began in 2005, and ADWR and USGS teams determined there are more than 300 wells in all three aquifers ranging in depth from 60 to 1,000 feet, said Brian Conway, of ADWR, in a presentation.

The data was collected, compiled and analyzed by the state and federal teams with the long-term goal of creating a numerical groundwater model that could be used to project what kind of impact would be realized by specific scenarios applied.

For example, the model would calculate how the water needs of a green energy project or how future population growth would deplete the aquifers.

“What is missing if the study is not finished, if all work stops Sept. 30, 2010?” Supervisor Buster Johnson, R-Dist. 3, asked upon conclusion of the ADWR presentation.

“There will be no numeric ground water model … it is the key tool that comes out of the long-term study,” Whitmer said.

“The part we are leaving out is the part we were after,” Johnson said.

Whitmer said the teams have collected enough information to form a good understanding of how the systems work. But, just when the county will run out of water is the question at hand.

“Without the numerical model, it will be very difficult to know just what will happen,” Whitmer said.

Margot Truini, of USGS, followed with an update to inform county supervisors of the progress made on their end of the study.

The presentation showed their study determined the recharge, or refill rate, of the three aquifers was determined to be rather unsubstantial.

Truini explained the free-flow water events common in this area when the washes run during a rainfall. The runoff does not allow enough saturation into the ground after evaporation and the amount of water taken by plants to recharge the aquifers.

The monitoring of future precipitation and recharge rates will be sacrificed as a result of terminating the study, Truini said.

“That is one reason I wanted them (ADWR and USGS) to give us what they have,” Supervisor Johnson told the Today’s News-Herald Monday after the meeting. “I would like to see it finished. It needs to be finished.”

You may contact the reporter at jhanson@havasunews.com.